A look at the Middle East

Women’s Freedom in the Middle East

Not only do laws on women's rights vary in the Middle East, so does the public's perception, finds Mogahed

Freedom House just released the 2010 survey of women’s rights in the Middle East and the findings were very predictable. Women’s rights were higher in countries like Lebanon and Morocco, but seriously lagging in others, like Saudi Arabia and Libya. Interestingly Dalia Mogahed compared the result of the Freedom House poll with a Gallup poll of public opinion. Mogahed found that, like the varying degrees of women’s rights laws throughout the region, the Middle East has a wide variety of perceptions as well. Simply meaning that women’s rights activists should not look at the region as a monolith, but rather disaggregate it into separate entities.

[tweetmeme] I have rarely written about my experiences here in Saudi, but considering it has the perhaps the strictest view of women, some anecdotes might help. First, there is the simple fact that despite evidence of a significant economic push would accompany a lift of the ban on women drivers, the Kingdom still does not allow women to drive. This results in a serious market for personal chauffeurs and taxi drivers.

Sitting in the ‘single men only’ section of a café one day, I had a front row seat to the varying views of women in the region. A group of Saudi men in front of me were looking at women through the window and deriding them for being outside without a male (although they were simultaneously making some pretty poor advances). At the same time a new Haifa music video from Lebanon came on to the television. The video is pretty straight forward; Haifa plays the Russel Crowe character in Gladiator and ruthlessly takes out her useless boyfriend.

The video (not to mention the lyrics of the song) were a pretty good juxtaposition to the scene in the café. If nothing else, Haifa makes a brilliant gladiator.

International Criminal Law

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All of the sudden Israel became a source of inspiration and a leading factor in American Jewish life. Often it was heralded as the “light unto nations” and various narratives at this time sprang up with great proliferation. Criticism of Israel and its policies within the community and within the world in general was kept hidden to a point that criticism was (and still now) considered anti-Semitic or “self hating.” This newly found love affair produced a plethora of “authoritative” works by prominent American Jews and their sympathizers that were held in high regard. Miraculously these books coincided with key events in the history where Israel was rightly being condemned for massive atrocities in the occupied territories and foreign countries such as Lebanon.